We search the world, asking questions. Sometimes we get answers that change the way we look at our lives and the cosmos.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Frozen in time

You have ten years left to live. You can finish out your days consecutively, if you choose, or be frozen in time and resurrected at will, for a year each time. How lengthy a gap would you choose between resurrections? If complete annihilation of the species and/or planet occurs during one of your hibernation periods, you're done. How far in the future are you willing to plan your final year?

I'd go with 30 year intervals. This would be enough time to see signifcant changes in science, technology, society, global politics, ect. I don't think we'd destroy ourselves in 30 years, but possibliy in 300. I could see the events surrounding our distruction without having to completely live through them. Or maybe I would be pleasantly suprized to see that we are finally treating each other like we should and are in a period of long term stablility. I could die happliy in that future.

I would just live it straight out from this point, using my known finite lifespan to wheedle as many reproduction rituals as possible. Of course with a little planning, those post-resurrection year intervals could be packed with such. If there were a caveman 5,000 years old to be resurrected in the prime of his primitive youth and hired out after his resurrection for reproductive purposes it is certain that this would be such a popular novelty that a race of cave babies would soon conquer civilized humanity.

I'd kinda like to keep things consistent and only put 3 days between each resurrection. Not only that, but after three days I'd be really hungry and would probably eat as many small fury creatures as I could find.

For me, I'd have to balance out the intense desire to see human destiny played out against the very real possibility that I won't understand enough of the future I wake up in to appreciate it. I say this because my initial answer was to put as much space as possible between my resurrections, as certainly each time I awoke and came to appreciate the world around me, I would certainly want to know where that world would be after the next gap in time(whether that be 100, 1000 or 10,000 years later.) But then I thought, what if it is impossible for me to understand the world I've woken up in? What would it mean to spend a year in a world I cannot relate to in anyway? I suppose as a compromise I would choose a period of 100 years between each resurrection. Surely human-kind cannot change so much that I cannot understand it in 1000 years, right?

i would spread out my years as far as possible while still being able to understand why humanity was like that at that time. So if everyone de evolved into monkeys i would want to know why they did that (on purpose with some technology? Natural process? Horrible change in climate?)

that is stupid. If you were meant to be frozen, then you would. if not, then you wont be meaning you should just continue as is. Becides, dont you think that freezing yourself in time for say 5 years would just cause problems. Now imagine everyone is doing this. It would be chaos, not that the now isnt already.

I'll live the next ten, as planned. It's already hard enough to get used to the changes that have occurred in my lifetime. And I already had to replace my record collection once. I'm not going to do that again.

The thought repulses me. I would spend the last ten years with people I love and who love me, rack up debts, engage in every carnal sin known to man, moon the gods, and in the 364th day of the tenth year do something they would speak of for ages.